Bartimaeus

Civilization V. I tried playing it a few months ago, but gave up after some hours because the AI is completely incapable of handling even other AI players, (and Barbarians - especially Barbarians who have a tendency to spawn right outside of their territory and steal and/or wreck their stuff while the AI sits around with its hands up its sleeves), and playing on difficulty settings higher than Prince just means they outright cheat...but still don't do much better, because they still have no bloody clue what they're doing with what they have, even if what they have is much better than what you do. An unarmed, adult man vs. a baby with pistol, basically. Sure, the baby has the greater means, but...it doesn't know what it's doing. I tried playing a few games these past few days again, but I disabled Barbarians and Ancient Ruins because they disproportionately gave a huge advantage to the player, (i.e. me), who actually knows how to (ab)use them properly. This actually allowed them to develop scientifically and culturally right along side me on Prince - two players even made it to the Classical Age before me, although not by much - but by the time I hit the Medieval Age, I was light years ahead of them, with my score about five times higher than the next highest. They don't know how to manage their cities at all, and tend to build up useless militaries that will not actually help them do much besides waste gold and production. It's good to have a few units, but they make a large amount and do nothing with them - not that they could do anything besides defend themselves, because they wouldn't have the infrastructure set up for taking over enemy lands, anyways...and if all one can do is defend yourself when everyone else is in the same position, what the heck is the point of having a military, anyways? I really like the underlying mechanics, but the game is just ridiculously and completely, utterly stupid. In my other games, pre-Barbarian/Ancient Ruins being disabled, I reached the Renaissance Age by about 500BC. This last time, I got there at about 300AD. I quit shortly after because by that point, I had made about 20 Wonders with no-one else making a single, the population of my capital city was a little over 30 with my other five cities all being around the 10-15 mark while the population of all the other players' capital cities' never exceeded 12, I was making several hundred gold per turn while nobody else was hardly making any, my culture and faith outputs were through the roof. The only two things that were comparable were my science output and my military - and since the AI is so stupid with its military units anyways and wouldn't have been able to take any of my cities anyways, especially considering I could outright buy new units every few turns if I really needed to, it hardly mattered. It'd probably be more fun multiplayer, but I think I'm just going to uninstall. RTS games these days...bah. (edit): Uh, not sure why I called it an RTS...because it's not...but it made me laugh when I reread it, so...

I kinda want to play, but I feel really uncomfortable playing a game like this multiplayer that I haven't played at least ONCE singleplayer. Hm...

The problem I've always had with Stalker shooting mechanics is that it's too RPGish in the way it handles damage - guns simply do too little damage...to both yourself, and to enemies - and this isn't even mentioning the % of bullets having no effect difficulty modifier that I've mentioned before. The shooting is so, so much better when the damage values are upped to a more "realistic" level, where the difference between a Novice outfit and an Exoskeleton is that you can only take two or three shots at best in a Novice outfit - even from a Makarov - and maybe half a dozen in an Exoskeleton. When I play Shadow of Chernobyl, I like using Stalker Complete's "Realistic Weapons" minimod, even though I don't use Stalker Complete itself, (but rather ZRP, [Zone Reclamation Project], the mod that Complete was mostly founded on and stole a huge amount of work from).

I'm almost certain you should be fine. (edit): Decided to make sure: wiki said you should be good if you reloaded.

I am aware of their (previous) status as an autonomous republic, and their previous ownership by Russia before that - both conditions, I think, are disregardable when concerning the annexation of another country's territory. Neat video, by the way. Doesn't prove anything of the sort, but it certainly seems that they had been planning, whether wholly as a deliberate scheme or as a contingency, for this sort of outcome. Politics...

I don't think that's what he said...I think was saying that Russia is only doing what the U.S. did...maybe more directly, but nevertheless. There's no *proof* (that I know of) of U.S. involvement, mind you, but as hegemon, we seem to always be assumed to be involved when things go favorably for us...and there's history to suggest that it's certainly possible. @Drowsy Emperor: hypocrisy in regards to politics does not really concern me - perhaps because all politicians, and the things derived from them (governments), all seem to be hypocritical no matter what way you look at it, but maybe that's just me. It also doesn't help that things seem to be much more "apparent" as to who's "wrong" in the Ukraine situation - i.e. the people actually conducting an invasion. People just root for the side they're on, no matter the reasons, (although that side might not always be what one would expect).

I used to have acid reflux a lot until I realized what I had was actually the opposite of acid reflux, (too little acidic content), which results in a similar problem. Ergo, Tums and such did naught to help it - and in fact only worsened and prolonged the issue. Now I almost never get it, knowing the proper way to deal with it, (that is, eat a lot of acidic foods!), haha. Last time I had it so much that it was painful, which was a few months ago, I ate a grapefruit, and it cleared up right away.

But totally plausible as to how a player would react if that situation had presented itself in-game. In a way I'm impressed. People would want to try and romance Bodhi? What part decaying, undead vampire lord of a guild of vampire murderers who are abducting normal people and turning them into vampires says fun times to you? Silly promancers...

...my lord...that is a lot worse sounding than I expected.

It also has negative connotations that suggest it's not a good thing, regardless...

I was under the impression you lost your Bhaalspawn powers because you lost your Bhaal-tainted soul...you get them back at the beginning of Throne of Bhaal, if I'm not mistaken.

...orrr you could just replace the heatsink-fan. lol

For me, it's not so much a matter of "realism" as taste. ...But then again, while I like other implementations better, it doesn't bother me THAT much. So maybe I'm not the best example.

I've...honestly never had that much of a problem with pathfinding in IE games. I'm not sure if that's because I always set the pathfinding computation level to maximum, (which it's not, at least in some of the IE games, by default), or if it's because I semi-consciously account for and work around it.

I didn't mind Grobnar. In between Elanee and Sandra and co.? Ha, he was one of the lesser offenders.

I don't quite understand. Why would they be stating that you love Minecraft? Why's it offensive? Just seems random and weird from the context you've given.

I haven't talked it over with anyone yet, but I don't think we will be putting any copy protection on the physical copies. If we do anything, it will probably be on the level of a CD key, but there is probably no reason we would even want to do that. Once we come to a final answer on that topic, I will fill you guys in. Wouldn't a CD key be useful for, e.g., registering with Steam if you want to, though? (I'm not necessarily sure that that could actually be done, but it's a thought, nonetheless.)

Hope you'll like Spec Ops more than I did...

Some of the first few games I ever played were Baldur's Gate, Age of Empires, Diablo, Quake III, and Counter-Strike - games that all defined their genres to some degree for a time. Suffice to say, I agree with everything you said.

Unless the combat tends to require as much thought (or approaching to) as other parts of the game, (which, for example, Baldur's Gate sometimes fulfills, a lot of the times does not...while a game like Mass Effect almost never does [which is probably why I found the "combat" in all of them so hideously boring and repetitive), I agree. @Drowsy Emperor: I can't help but disagree with you on how the genre has shifted being a step in the right direction. I wouldn't say it's the wrong direction, either, but just a different one. Maybe it's my love of numbers speaking, but I genuinely like how upfront and...in a way, clear, everything was with the Infinity Engine games. I didn't really want to use "clear", because in some ways, the IE games are extremely obtuse and unclear if you didn't already know the underlying mechanics, but if you did know them, then all the information that you'd ever want to determine exactly what your characters and their current capabilities are, and how those capabilities will affect the things you can do, and what these tiny incremental numbers will actually really mean when put into use, etc., were all served right up to you. With games like Mass Effect, I only have a vague idea of how everything is working - nothing is really "concrete", and I only have a basic grasp on how new changes will affect my capabilities, (more tends to be better, the formula goes, but how much better, I could never really say). For me, that's not a good thing - that perpetual "unknowledge" of the mechanics makes me not very interested or invested in them...which, when a very large portion of your stupid game is mired in, is not a good thing, in my opinion.

I agree with this. I think my problem with rogues is that devs always try to make them as effective in combat as fighters, rather than giving them fun rogue stuff to do outside of combat. The Quest For Glory series has had the best class implementation in games IMO. That's just because RPGs consist of 99 % combat. I can't even remember the last time rogues had an actual impact on the game apart from a few cosmetic locks and traps. Baldur's gate 1-2, where the cosmetic traps were a bigger deal? And even so. The last time I tried to replay BG2, I was genuinely surprised by how abundant filler combat is. Interesting fights like the one with Mencar Pebblecrusher and his band at Mithrest Inn are far and few between, but the game is chock full of "2d4+1 dungeon-thematic mobs" encounters. Oh, and I was also playing evil, so I had a squad of hasted troopers and mages dropped on my head every time I walked outside. Fun times. Suffice to say I got bored in the end and couldn't finish the playthrough. Try playing with Sword Coast Stratagems - you might find the game a bit more difficult, even for some more minor encounters, like with Yuan-Ti mages, (hint: they're quite mean and dastardly in SCS, ). Not all, of course (because SCS mostly tries to stay fair/true to the game), but it definitely makes the game more interesting.

Yeah, he meant it hits, in terms of damage and THAC0, as a lesser weapon except against said particular foes. The enchantment level is a sort of...set value. Can't be changed for particular types of monsters, unlike THAC0 and damage.

Oops, I missed that because it's above the STATISTICS line. Note: always considered to be of +5 enchantment when determining what it can hit. As far as I know, that's normal. Where have you seen to suggest that it should only be of +3 enchantment? That would break the weapon.